We all face peer pressure in life. From small, meaningless things to big life decisions, we feel pressure from others to make a certain decision. A lot of times, the decision that others want you to make may not be the best one. For this reason, people need ways to deal with peer pressure. There are a lot of tips on the internet for dealing with peer pressure for all different kinds of audiences. For this post, I chose tips for college students, high school students, and athletes.

The first website I found was bestcollegereviews.org. Their first suggestion was to find a group of students that are focused on school. This is definitely a good first step. Surrounding yourself with the right people is very important. If your friends have the same values as you, it will go a long way towards not feeling peer pressure. Not everyone has the same values though, and even if you find a group of friends that are focused on school, stuff happens and you could still find yourself in an uncomfortable situation. Whether it is alcohol, drugs, sex, or something else, you might need a way to deal with pressure. The website says to say “thanks, but no thanks” to offers to do something you are not comfortable with. If that does not work, politely leave the situation. Finally, if neither of those work, get in contact with an adult you trust. I think these tips work in an ideal world and should usually work but sometimes people will keep pressuring you. In that situation, being all nice about it will not really work. You should be firm or even get aggressive. It might not be the best for your relationship with that person but it will get you out of that situation. Getting out of the situation is usually the best way to deal with peer pressure.

The next website was 6 tips for dealing with peer pressure in high school. It is by teens.drugabuse.gov. I read through it and it really was not tips. The article was more of excuses to give people so you avoid drinking or doing drugs. These are good to have but they’re nowhere near perfect. People will eventually pick up on the excuses and one of two things will happen. Either you get left alone or pressured more. In the case that you get left alone, then the excuses did their job. But sometimes people will keep pressuring you. The website does not really give any tips for if you find yourself in this situation. If that situation does come up, it is probably best to follow the tips from the first website and politely leave.

My final website was tips for dealing with peer pressure for athletes. Peer pressure for athletes is a little different than regular peer pressure. It comes more as pressure to perform. This pressure can affect your performance positively or negatively depending on how you handle it. Their first tip is to reframe the pressure. Instead of seeing it as negative, see it as positive. This change in perception is huge. It puts you in a much better mindset which will go a long way towards performing better. They then say to reduce external and internal sources of pressure. Parents, coaches, and for some athletes, reporters can put a lot of pressure on. The website suggests that you talk to them about it. A lot of times, your parents and coaches do not know they are putting pressure on you and talking to them and letting them know will get them to stop. You also put pressure on yourself to perform. The website advises that you let it push you to perform better. Their next tip is to know the symptoms of pressure. If you can recognize the pressure, you can start to deal with it. The first step is knowing it’s there. Their next tip is to use the pressure in your training. Knowing you have a big game coming up can push you to work harder to get ready. This can be really good for you but it could also spell disaster if you overdo it. You have to make sure you are using the other methods of dealing with pressure, not just training. So many athletes have gotten hurt from pushing themselves too far while getting ready for a big game. Their last tip was to make a checklist. If you have a specific process that works for you, it is best that you write it down and follow it. Pressure could make us do some things that could harm our chances of success, having a checklist can keep you from doing something out of the ordinary.

IAT tests can show bias that you are not aware of. I chose to take 2 of the online today and they were actually pretty cool. They were given to me at random and both ended up being about differences between men and women. The first was about the association between men and women, and sport and dance. Results showed that I have a strong automatic association of men with sports and women with dance. While consciously, I don’t really believe that sports are for boys and dance is for girls, I can see where the association comes from. I play sports with all boys, the sports I watch are all boys and even sports video games are all boys. I believe that is probably the basis for that association. The second test was about the association between men and women and leading and supporting. This time the test showed a slight automatic association of men with leading and women with supporting. This one made more sense to me than the first. When I saw the results, I thought of how I handle conflicts that come up. If something happened and I needed comfort or emotional support, I would go to my mom or a girlfriend. If I needed a solution or something fixed, I was going straight to my dad. I never really gave it too much thought but after taking that test, all of that made sense. I can see this being used for a lot of things. For college students, it could be used in making a decision to pick a major or minor. Maybe the student has an unconscious preference to one or the other that the test can show. It could have the same use in your career when it comes to picking jobs. If you ever become a boss you could use it to find certain unconscious biases of people in the workplace. For example, the test could be used to see if people have negative biases towards their bosses/managers. You could use that information to make the workplace a little more comfortable.

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